Hofmann enjoying his new life in mountains
David Perry, Executive Editor -- Furniture Today, January 23, 2005
It's the stuff of Hollywood: A top executive escapes the pressures of the world of work and finds peace and happiness in an isolated mountain retreat.
Don Hofmann, the former Simmons marketing maven, is living that Hollywood script. He's comfortably ensconced in a wonderful mountain house in an isolated neck of the woods in western North Carolina known as Sunny View. Yes, that was his back you saw in our column in the Jan 10 issue. Here, at left, is how Don looks from the front these days.
As fate would have it, Hofmann's mountain getaway is just a hop, skip and a jump from Columbus, N.C., where my wife grew up. When we visited her folks over the holidays, we set aside some time to visit with Don and his wife, Denise, at their mountain home.
The driveway to their place slips past a metal gate, dips down for a while and then climbs up, up, up. We shifted into low gear to keep our van moving skyward. We finally emerged from the woods and saw, off to our left, a house perched on the ridge line.
Don and Denise have called this home for the past three months, although they've kept their Atlanta-area home.
The views from their open, airy house are spectacular. The beginnings of the Blue Ridge Mountains rise up all around them. The nearest mountain is called Sugar Loaf.
Don is taking a year-long sabbatical from the home furnishings industry. He was part of the management team at Simmons that benefited from the Thomas Lee acquisition of the company, giving him a couple of million reasons to ponder a new lifestyle, if you follow my drift.
He loves life in the mountains. He stays in touch with industry friends, but he's mostly focused on different horizons, like the awesome one that greets him each morning in Sunny View. At night, he loves the beautiful sky, unmarred by the lights of a big city. "The stars at night are amazing," he says. He's got a telescope to help him zero in on the stars.
So we leave Don in his mountain perch, where his family and his hobbies loom large. In time he may want to re-enter the business world. Given his stellar marketing skills, he shouldn't have any trouble landing a good job.
But for now, he and Denise are enjoying their escape to nature. They are living a life that many of us covet. Don, you deserve the time off.
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Hofmann enjoying his new life in mountains
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